Active optical cables (AOCs) are used for various communication applications and several publications discuss techniques to improve their performance. Examples of prior art techniques are provided below.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,041,210, to Aronson, et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes an optical transmission system, which includes more optical channels than electrical channels. If an optical channel is not functioning, the signals may be diverted to another optical channel since there are more optical channels than electrical channels.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,801,442, to Wang, et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes redundant channel implementation to extend optical transceiver lifetime and reliability. Embodiments introduce redundant optical channels to significantly extend the lifetime of parallel optical transceivers.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,821,026, to Devine, et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a redundant configurable VCSEL laser array optical light source which provides for integrating optical communications capabilities into manufacturing processes for a substrate or submount such as a silicon or ceramic substrate, a multi-chip module, a package board, backplane or similar component.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,306,313, to Baldwin, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes an optical transmission system which employs a plurality of receiver-transmitter pairs. One of the plurality of pairs is selected to propagate optical signals under control of switching means. The optical signal as propagated is monitored and if a fault is detected in the signal, another redundant receiver-transmitter pair is automatically switched in.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,422,887, to Haramaty, et al., whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a system for redundancy in Ethernet passive optical networks (EPONs), which facilitates fast recovery from failure, path redundancy of a fiber optic network, and location redundancy of optical line terminals (OLTs).